


Measuring Importance

by glimmerglanger



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: But No Overt Relationship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Pre-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Prompt: Stab Wounds, Whumptober 2019, Written with a Pre Steve/Natasha Intention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-08
Updated: 2019-10-08
Packaged: 2020-11-27 14:07:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20949578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glimmerglanger/pseuds/glimmerglanger
Summary: Steve didn’t mind so much, working with a smaller group, moving carefully here and there, striking fast at targets and running. In a way, it reminded him of his days with the Howling Commandos, bringing a nostalgic feeling of rightness to his bones.But even he could admit that he missed some of the conveniences he’d gotten used to, working in the open, in the sunlight, with the full backing of SHIELD. Medical care, for one thing, had been a lot better before he made himself an outlaw.





	Measuring Importance

**Author's Note:**

> Set post-Civil War and pre-Infinity War, during the time Steve, Nat, and Sam were running around doing secret missions, etc.
> 
> Written for Whumptober 2019 (stab wounds). Almost 1/3rd of the way through the challenge!

Steve didn’t mind so much, working with a smaller group, moving carefully here and there, striking fast at targets and running. In a way, it reminded him of his days with the Howling Commandos, bringing a nostalgic feeling of rightness to his bones.

But even he could admit that he missed some of the conveniences he’d gotten used to, working in the open, in the sunlight, with the full backing of SHIELD. Medical care, for one thing, had been a lot better before he made himself an outlaw.

He hissed, shrugging his jacket off one shoulder in the quiet of an abandoned apartment they were calling theirs for the night. He could hear Natasha and Sam - well, probably just Sam, Nat barely made any noise - moving around in the halls. Floorboards creaked under foot. Doors shut. Furniture shifted.

He listened, paying attention despite himself, on-edge because the sounds might shift to something more portensious at any moment. They were being looked for, hunted. They all knew it. It kept his nerves strung tight even as he finally managed to work free an arm and gritted his jaw, the movement jarring the injuries across his back.

Steve twisted his head back, angling for a good look, but the wounds were in a bad position. He could see blood, smeared everywhere, but little else. Which meant he’d need a mirror, to take care of cleaning them. He scowled around the empty room, preparing to stand when his door opened, soundlessly.

“Knock, knock,” Natasha said, slipping into the room, shutting the door with her heel. She carried a bowl full of water - he wondered where she’d gotten it, the water certainly wasn’t on _here_ \- and one of their medical kits. A rag hung over her shoulder. “Alright, shift over.”

“You don’t,” he started, watching her cross the room and arrange her things. Her hair had pulled free, all around her face. She’d cleaned the dirt and blood off of her skin, but he remembered too well where it had been. “I’ll heal from it, it’s...”

He trailed off when she glanced at him, eyebrow arched over her unimpressed gaze. “They look deep,” she said, small hand on his shoulder, pushing him forward, just a bit. “We don’t need them to get infected.”

They _felt_ deep, the three stab wounds low on his back, delivered in a stunning rush by one of the remnants of the Hydra cell they’d been digging out. They hadn’t hurt at the time, the slide of the blade too fast to register as he’d leaned his body forward, over Nat, where she lay pinned to the ground by a fallen building.

Their only saving grace had been the fact that the attacker apparently couldn’t find Steve’s kidneys to save his life. Thankfully, Sam had been there to shoot the Hydra soldier in the head before the man’s aim improved.

“Listen,” Steve said, swallowing with a click as her hand slid down his back, towards the injuries. “You’re hurt, too, you should--”

“You can help me out when I’m done,” she said. “Lean forward, elbows on your knees.” He listened, the cool, firm tones hitting all the switches left in his head from his time in uniform. It felt… almost like relief, to listen to clear orders after a fight, to let someone else tell him what he needed to do to be made well.

He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, hung his head between his shoulders, and shut his eyes.

She worked quickly and quietly, cleaning the wounds without complaint. Rinsing them was… unpleasant. It hurt far more than taking the wounds had in the first place. He gritted his teeth, curled his hands into fists, and kept breathing, slow and steady, through the bloody work of it.

“You didn’t need to do it,” Natasha said, after so long in the quiet that her voice came as a surprise. She sounded bothered, as bothered as she ever got, anyway. He twisted to look at her, finding her brow furrowed in concentration, no signs of tension or pain on her expression, though he knew she was hurt.

“Yeah, I did,” he said. The Hydra agent had come from nowhere, after they thought they’d finished the cell off, appearing as Steve worked to remove the debris burying Natasha. Killing him would have required Steve to drop half a wall back on top of her. So would have doding out of the way.

Her mouth pulled into a frown. “You’re lucky one of these didn’t hit an organ. You should have--”

“Nat,” he said, shifting, ignoring her little noise of protest when he interrupted her work. He caught her wrist, so she stopped trying to return to cleaning the wounds. The rag in her hand was dark red. He could feel blood and water soaking into his pants, sliding down his back. “I’m not going to let anyone kill you. Not if I can help it.”

She stared at him, holding his gaze. He felt her pulse against his fingers, steady, a little faster than it should have been. But she was hurt, even though she wasn’t showing it. That explained the race of her heart.

He rubbed his thumb across her wrist, absent and unthinking, and watched her look down to see. She said, after a moment, “You’re too important to die because some idiot stabbed you in the back.”

He snorted and then regretted it; pain splintered out through his back, up into his chest, down into his legs. He shook his head. “I’m not important to--”

“You’re important to me,” she interrupted, twisting her wrist free with a smooth movement that somehow slid his fingers off, despite all his intentions. She put her hand between his shoulder blades, pushing a little bit, bending back towards the wounds.

He resisted the pressure, straightening instead, turning, reaching out to touch her hip when she frowned down at him. He could still see the surprise in her expression when he’d leaned over her, hear her startled little, “Steve, no--”

He swallowed. “In case you haven’t noticed,” he said, picking his way forward carefully, because he had… no experience with this. Not really. No practice putting all the tight, complicated emotions in his chest when he looked at her into words. “You’re important to me, too.”

Her eyes darkened, just noticeably. It was the only change he saw in her, as she stared down at him, before she blinked and looked to the side. “That’s--you--” She took a breath and nodded to herself. “I need to stop the bleeding.”

He nodded back, dropping his hand off of her hip and leaning forward once more. He got the feeling that she had, potentially, even less practice dealing with the whatever-it-was between them than he did. But that was fine.

They had time to figure it out, to discuss things when the room didn’t smell like blood and they weren’t both beat to hell. 

She did good work, patched him up with sure hands and limited pain, and he turned, intending to help her, when Sam rapped once on the door and pushed it open to say, “Hey, we got trouble. Sounds like it involves Vision.”


End file.
